Get a grasp on Joomla 4 features in this quick Joomla 4 Review.
A compilation of first-hand experiences Joomla experts on the new Joomla 4 developments.
The Joomla 4 version’s release from 2019 to early this year has led to numerous writings for this most improved Joomla version. Hence, this simplified review of what to expect from the Joomla! 4 Package – key features and core benefits since the Joomla 4 version was introduced and announced in 2017.
A Joomla 4 stable version is rolling out soon. We can now see the feature differences and improvements between the Joomla 4 version and the previous Joomla! versions to ease both search results and user pain points.
Joomla is one good alternative if you have those websites that require user accounts, registrations, and user access control features. Thus, Joomla 4 content management system (CMS) is a perfect choice for you as the most improved Joomla version.
How does Joomla 4 Work?
We will discuss in-depth comparative thoughts of the Joomla content management system (CMS) features and wins using the new Joomla 4 platform. We will include some contrasting to understand the Joomla CMS platform better. Hopefully, getting you this thoroughly compact Joomla 4 review and a birds-eye view of the Joomla 4 development roadmap.
You can consider this review of the Joomla 4 version a good choice to start your Joomla SEO journey, the best improved Joomla version so far.
The Joomla 4 version has brought vital improvements to Joomla! Platform. Such improvements include the website’s speed, optimization, security, performance, and codebase, which could not be achieved with the previous Joomla versions.
Joomla 3, for instance, was not a bad thing as it has achieved some milestones, but its best is not enough to roll Joomla out for a wider and longer-term. Hopefully, satisfying both search results and user pain points.
This Joomla 4 version CMS works in creating a variety of websites such as the government, social media, and e-commerce. Making the Joomla 4 package – key features and benefits a highly suitable portfolio for those mentioned above and other web development projects.
The Joomla 4 version is now in its final beta stages. The Joomla 4 version is now 100% ready for testing. You can download the beta version here. Thanks to the Joomla team, though it’s almost ready for use on your live sites.
You can also update from Joomla 3.9x to Joomla 4 by going to the Joomla Update Component Options. Please switch the update channel to “Testing” and the minimum stability option to “Beta” You can check the details of the step-by-step migration process in the documentation.
Joomla 4 offers uniquely superior site control.
The Joomla 4 version provides a wide array of user management features. Its unique admin interface is out-of-the-world. The Joomla 4 version is easy to learn, understand, navigate, and manage the site’s admin control.
The Joomla 4 version offers superior admin control over the site’s operation that includes users, articles & its categories, media, modules, and plugins.
Unlike other CMS platforms, you can have a roundup and end-to-end editing and control of your site’s content. Its superior site control comes with a wide selection of site and system support, languages, stack exchange, news and resources, and an active network of the Joomla community.
Joomla may have a tighter competition with WordPress, but it can give Drupal a rough time. Joomla!, if it positions itself smartly in its Joomla 4 version release to tackle that as its management and development are way easier than Drupal.
Even though Joomla is a pretty secure CMS, it is still very widely used, which means it will always have the risk of being attacked or hacked. The best thing to do is to implement the best security practices to protect your site and ease up search results and user pain points.
Joomla 4 software releases have addressed security and bug issues, most initial care, and SEO attention. The Joomla! 4 Package – key features and core benefits have greater potential than other CMS to rank very high if a website and pages are set up properly.
The Joomla development roadmap tells how the Joomla 4 software evolves and contains basic SEO-optimization functionalities. It can be extended by both SEO beginners and experienced web developers’ hands for the succeeding releases and most improved Joomla version.
Release Lead
George Wilson takes the lead of the Joomla 4.0 release.
Backward Compatibility Breaks
Joomla! 4.0 introduces backward compatibility breaks that may impact existing sites and extensions. You can see these breaks on the potential issues documentation of Joomla! 4.0.
Main Features
Let us have a common concept on the primary features, the wins of having Joomla! 4.0 to make our review worthwhile:
It has a quick installation of Joomla – the easier, faster, and more user-friendly install process;
A brand new user-interfaces (UI) with improved back-end and front-end;
A cleaner and more powerful codebase, including customizable HTML mail templates. It aims that the templates are accessible;
An amazing new, improved Media Manager with a cleaner UI and new image editing capabilities;
Has new publishing Workflow with advanced methods to manage and customize articles;
It has web services with content that other websites and mobile applications can easily access;
The package has new security features that fix bugs and support Second Query Language (SQL);
It has an improved and expanded Command Line Interface (CLI); and
The Joomla 4 latest release has wielded the power of the Joomla Framework.
In Joomla 4 Development Features
These are features that are present in the development stage. You can assist or contribute to their development. Feel free to contact the release lead or the release team. You can also check via GitHub the list of the accepted features of Joomla! 4.0.
Pull Requests that Requires Documentation.
It has a few pull requests that are merged before the documentation is written. You can find a list of those pull requests on GitHub. You can find each new feature on the developers’ documentation wiki to provide all information to users. It also helps 3rd party developers to change a feature to their extensions.
Documentation Help Screens
It is based on a full major release series where all of the help screens require Joomla’s 4.0 updates. Add to the required updates, and there is an idea proposal for a potential GSoC project. It will work on a new system to manage the screenshots. Even if the project does not happen as part of GSoC the effort will continue otherwise.
Here’s a quick review of the basic features that you need to know about Joomla! 4.0.
The Wins of Joomla! 4 Package – key features & benefits.
A User-friendly Joomla learning process.
Learning the Joomla platform is easy. It is Joomla’s true strength, and with its learning process, it becomes easier than other content management systems (CMS) or site operation alternatives. You can benefit it as you are not starting completely from scratch.
You don’t “need” to be a PHP, CSS, Javascript, or HTML coding rockstar. Especially the Joomla 4 version, the Joomla software can handle most of that CMS coding for you.
You can take a quick jumpstart on this video on the wins of the Joomla! 4.0 beta release, key features, and benefits. Navigating through the admin (control) panel is a smooth learning process to walk you through the site, system, sample data, update checks, privacy dashboard, logged-in users, latest actions, recently added articles, popular articles, and even adding new modules.
Versatile CMS package for building websites.
The Joomla 4 development roadmap is the best package for SEO beginners, web designers or developers, and website owners. Seeing the other Joomla series and a recent Joomla 4 review on its beta 3 release, it becomes one of the top CMS compared to WordPress. The most improved Joomla version for a website CMS so far.
The J4 version can fit for simple blogging, corporate websites, or small business websites. From its original release, Joomla is tested in social networking and e-commerce sites.
In contrast, Drupal is the most technically advanced CMS and good for technical people who like to get into technicality. Easing up search results and user pain points.
The installation process is easier.
When a developer would say, “Install Joomla in the blink of an eye,” you would surely be curious how to do it. Almost seven years ago, Brian Teeman at JoomlaDay Melbourne in 2013 was talking about how to install Joomla 3 in less than 15 seconds.
Joomla! 4.0 can easily get you down to 10 seconds with fewer things to check than Joomla 3. It can take you a few seconds to unpack the Joomla package file in CPanel File Manager.
It was a click, drag, installation, and log into the back-end of the Joomla 4 (Admin) Control Panel in under a minute. Hence, we will discuss the wins in this review of the Joomla 4 package – its key features, and its core benefits.
You can toggle its Menu, then click ‘check for updates’ in the Home Dashboard and select the ‘upload and update’ option. It is your practical and best guide to navigate through SEO, which resulted from the Joomla 4 development roadmap over the years.
An intuitive publishing Workflow.
The Joomla! 4 Workflow V2 has just been merged into its latest beta development package and is the one feature you can hope to see in Joomla! 4.0 (J4 or J4.0 or J4.x) since Joomla 1 (J1.0). Having it in the core will change how you think of using Joomla for various publishing and website building projects highly favorable to you.
You can improve your creative process using Workflow, even if you are a solo blogger or within a group. Making it handy implementing and operating in the site for a small to a medium enterprise.
You can also use Workflow to create an editorial process to action steps in your publishing process. It is called the game-changer, especially for large enterprises – corporates, NGOs, NFPs, government, and agencies. They can use Joomla 4’s Workflow to manage their content development sitewide. This Joomla 4 review is what you should ponder to ease your site performance, search results, and user pain points.
Managing user-generated content through scheduling and featuring articles or blogs with smaller or larger organizations. You can fine-tune the process to your organizational needs.
Read the workflow development documentation and look at the scenarios. You can quickly install Joomla! 4.0 and navigate about adding in a workflow for your blogging process.
The J4.x publishing workflow component is used to replace static pages like unpublished, published, trashed, and archived states with a more generic approach. It can easily create a customized workflow to manage your articles within a component.
It also has the article tool range that is now smaller, and the view is generally tidier. Using the workflow component, you can create customized states for the articles and group them in categories.
Most Joomla developers can set up and test the workflow under an hour. Ending up with more or less than 10 stages and 10 transitions to help automate how articles end up being published. Yes, this has resulted from a continual improvement brought by the Joomla 4 development roadmap’s effective implementation.
Stages set the step of the workflow. It starts from an Idea stage, then moves through First and Final Drafts before it goes to the Editors.
They can send it back to the Author for review easily. You can also move your publications using Workflow to the publisher group. This allows you to schedule and publish the article intuitively. And once you can complete publishing, a final stage easily converts the end of life (EOL) article into being Archived.